


The Scandal in the Baskervilles

by songlin



Series: Powerful, Beautiful and Without Regret [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Anal, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Angst, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, M/M, Smut, Vampire Irene, Vampire Sherlock, Vampires, Werewolf John, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-14
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:34:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson has seen terrible things and come back physically and mentally whole. Changed, but whole, and positive that if Afghanistan couldn't break him than England sure as hell won’t. Then came Gwen Norton, the beautiful, fierce white wolf with eyes like fire, and the rest of Irene Adler’s pack. Then came the hounds of the Baskervilles.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Evil's Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I should warn you that while there are no explicit nonconsensual acts, allusions are made to them.
> 
> The official fanmix featuring all the themes and songs with lyrics used for titles can be downloaded [here](https://rapidshare.com/files/4018781926/ScandalInTheBaskervilles.zip).
> 
> _Theme: Seven Devils by Florence + The Machine_

John Watson only knows a few words of Pashto. He knows “my baby” because there was a woman in Jalalabad who screamed it for an hour while John tried to keep her intestines inside of her. She had been holding her son when an explosion blasted a chunk of wall through her midsection. What was left of the baby came back in two body bags. One time, after intubating a burn victim, he lifted his gloved hand away and took skin with it. There was another man who’d been partially trapped under a Humvee for days. What was left of his leg was black to the knee. On several occasions John arrived to scenes to find heads that had gone through windshields and forgotten their bodies. He had to hold a woman’s face together once, knowing that if he let go the two pieces of her jaw would flop out and the gaping maw that once been her chin and mouth and nose would open. All the eyes were probably the worst, hanging out on strings of tendons and nerves on tanned cheeks or nothing but bloody holes in the middles of faces.

He’s seen an IED shred his best friend into three pieces, seen a Taliban werewolf rip out half his shoulder, seen people going from brave, swaggering men to shivering boys crying for their mothers, and seen the woman who, ten hours previously, been on her knees in front of him swallowing his cock bleed out screaming.

All of this is to say that he has seen terrible things and come back physically and mentally whole. Changed, but whole, and positive that if Afghanistan couldn’t break him than England sure as hell won’t.

Then came Gwen Norton, the beautiful, fierce white wolf with eyes like fire, and the rest of Irene Adler’s pack. Then came the hounds of the Baskervilles.

\---

It starts with a phone call.

John wakes from a nap just before sunset to Sherlock staring at him. This is not an unusual event, nor is the round of enthusiastic snogging and groping that follows. There is a bit of biting, barely enough to call for a plaster, and then Sherlock insists on a shower and John goes about making supper.

Throughout all of this, Sherlock’s phone rings six times.

On the seventh, John decides enough is enough. “You going to get that?” he asks across the table.

Sherlock, who is prodding at something meaty of questionable age with a pencil, shrugs. “It’s just Mycroft. He’ll stop eventually.”

His phone rings again.

“The question is,” says John around a mouthful of chicken marsala, “whether he stops calling before or after I stomp on your bloody phone.”

Sherlock says nothing. Something bursts on the meaty thing.

The phone rings again while John is doing the washing-up. John glances over. Sherlock is fully preoccupied with extracting fluid from his questionable meaty object. John slyly sets his plate down, wipes his hands on his dressing gown, and snatches the phone off the table.

“Good evening, Sherlock Holmes’s personal answering service,” John says cheerily.

“Ah, John. Glad to hear from you. Is my brother there?”

Sherlock is glaring daggers.

“He is, but he--er, can’t come to the phone. Can I put you on speaker?”

“By all means.”

He fumbles with the phone for a moment. “How the--okay, you’re on.”

“Excellent.”

Sherlock scowls.

“There is a woman coming over with a case.”

Sherlock makes a point of looking as if he’s not listening.

“She will want you to acquire something for her. That may be all she asks of you.”

Sherlock is still _not listening_.

“Whatever you do, no matter what she promises, _do no more_ for this woman. I cannot elaborate further. You must believe me when I say that it is not in your best interests to involve yourself with her.”

Sherlock is listening. He straightens and gives the phone a mutinous look. “Is it?” he rumbles.

_“Yes,”_ says Mycroft. “He’ll be there in approximately...seven minutes, I’d say. Good luck, John.” The line goes dead.

“‘Good luck _John’?”_ Sherlock muses, narrowing critical eyes at the phone. “Come, John. We’ve a guest on the way.”

In precisely seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds, the doorbell rings. Sherlock grins.

The woman who enters the flat does so like a lot of sanguinarians do, with a sweeping air of superiority. She’s dressed somewhat anachronistically, in a green and white houndstooth dress, short white wool jacket, white pillbox hat, black pumps, black gloves and pantyhose. Her pale hair is in a well-controlled, curled bob around her face, dark eyes severe under short fringe. She’s taller than John, but not by much, and when she shrugs off her jacket her arms are wired with muscle.

“Caroline Baskerville,” she says, holding out a hand. “Sherlock Holmes, I presume.”

Sherlock ignores her hand and takes a seat in his chair, gesturing to the one across from him. “Please, take a seat. This is my friend John Watson; he is privy to all my affairs.”

John nods tightly.

Baskerville’s lips thin. “Yes, I’ve done my research.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. Ms. Baskerville sits down in John’s usual chair, crossing her legs neatly and settling her hands on her knee.

“Mr. Holmes, I’ve come to you with a problem.”

He sighs tragically. “Let me guess. You’re the last of the Baskerville vampires, and you’ve got a security leak. Possibly within your staff, but more likely your ex-lover. Perhaps even both; your family’s not known for its generosity nor its...‘people skills.’ You feel the danger has become imminent and require assistance in finding and eliminating this leak of yours.”

John is somewhat impressed that Ms. Baskerville’s mouth stays shut. She merely inclines her head.

“Impressive, Mr. Holmes.”

He shrugs. “You’re not the only one who does research.”

“Erm, hi,” says John. “Bit of exposition would be much appreciated, thanks.”

Sherlock steeples his fingers and keeps his eyes trained on Ms. Baskerville. “The Baskerville clan started as a noble family near Dartmoor. The seat of their holdings was what is today the village of Grimpen, at Baskerville Hall.”

“Creativity was never our strong suit,” Ms. Baskerville comments, inspecting her long scarlet fingernails.

“They were well-known for...keeping a well-stocked pantry, you might say.”

John’s stomach roils. Ms. Baskerville neither objects nor reacts.

“Naturally, the smallfolk of Grimpen objected to the treatment of their finest young women, but the Baskervilles were efficient landlords and kept them...in check.”

Ms. Baskerville shrugs. “Those were the times.”

“A few of the women in their... _larder_...were lycanthropes. As time went by the nature of their ailment began to change. It became controllable. And these changes were congenital. Children born to mothers who could control when they transformed and how they behaved when they did could do the same, and so on for generations.”

“Yeah, the Dartmoor strain,” says John. “That’s where it started? But I’ve never heard--”

“The surviving Baskervilles are well-connected,” says Sherlock, cocking his head. Ms. Baskerville smiles demurely.

“Surviving?”

“Yes. Although the Dartmoor strain is only symptomatic in women, it spread quickly. The Baskervilles were driven out of their holdings by 1617, and the descendants of the women they kept have a taste for vengeance.”

Ms. Baskerville sneers. “Those pitiful she-wolves. Four hundred years and they’re still bitter.” Her eyes flicker over to John. “You’re angry,” she says mildly.

He laughs. “Yeah, little bit. You _are_ talking about locking people up and eating them bit by bit against their will.”

Ms. Baskerville tilts her head and smiles. “Oh, you sweet young thing. You cannot know what it was like in those days. There was no tepamine to slake our thirst. No one called us ‘sanguinarians’ and allowed us to drink from them of their own free will. We could hunt a meager diet from animals and hunger constantly for more, or else creep into homes and hunt in the shadows from the unsuspecting. We chose a different way. We took into our home young women who would otherwise live a life of poverty and hardship and gave them food and lodging. In return, we asked only to feed from them once a fortnight or so. We were not cruel. We did not beat them. We allowed them to see their families, their lovers, their children. _It was the kinder way.”_

John grants her a sarcastic smile. “You’ll forgive me if I disagree with you on that point.”

Sherlock waves a hand. “Your ex-lover. What does he have on you?”

_“She_ has acquired the security codes to Baskerville Hall.”

“You can’t just change it?” says John.

Ms. Baskerville grimaces. “Not without the override key, which she is also in possession of.”

Sherlock winces melodramatically. “Surely you’ve additional measures?”

“Of course. Nevertheless, you can imagine my...general discomfort with the situation.”

Sherlock nods. “Name?”

Ms. Baskerville’s lips thin. “Irene Adler.”

Sherlock’s face lights up. “I know the name. She’s in my files. Born in Austria in the early sixteenth century, brought up in the court of King Francis I, sent to Lord Hugo Baskerville to be wed and met a different sort of eternal fate.”

“She never had much of a taste for the countryside,” says Ms. Baskerville, eyes glazing over. “She left for London when she was little more than a newborn.”

“Moved around Europe every few years until the twenties, when she left for America and made her way as a nightclub singer.” Sherlock folds his fingers together and scowls. “Nothing on her after 1993.”

Ms. Baskerville smiles, showing teeth.

“Ah. _Very_ well-connected, then.”

“She contacted me, let me know that now we were living in the open, she was coming back to England. When she arrived, I offered her a place in my home. My London home, of course, not Baskerville Hall. I prefer not to stay there unless necessary; it’s...shall we say, bad publicity.”

Sherlock quirks up an eyebrow but says nothing.

“I am ashamed to say I did not realize she had been contacted by the she-wolves. A month ago, my chief of security, Mr. Barrymore, raised concerns that Miss Adler might be in contact with...undesirables. Upon learning of our suspicions, she stole the security codes to Baskerville Hall and fled. Our efforts to retrieve them have been unsuccessful. It appears Miss Adler has garnered quite a loyal following from the bitches. No offense meant to you, of course,” she adds smoothly to John.

“Oh, really? Was that what you meant?”

Ms. Baskerville shifts her attentions back to Sherlock. “She is currently staying at her old place from Victoria’s rule, on Wilton Crescent. I trust you can find it?”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

“Excellent. Then I shall make my leave. You may contact me at this number.” She extends a business card, which Sherlock tucks into his jacket pocket.

“John will show you out,” he says, already on his feet and halfway down the hall to his room.

_John would rather not._

“You find me distasteful,” Ms. Baskerville remarks as she steps through the door.

“I find plenty of people distasteful,” he says. “We’ll call you with news.”

When the door shuts, John is tremendously pleased.

\---

The taxi ride to Belgravia is not a pleasant one.

“I don’t like this,” John says as soon as the cab pulls away from the curb. “Working for this Baskerville woman.”

“The Baskervilles were hardly the most morally repugnant of our kind. The Florentine families were known to keep humans like cattle, complete with breeding programs. There were Portuguese slave traders who made their fortunes kidnapping African natives, sailing to European ports and selling the run of the ship to the highest bidders. Settlers in the New World wiped out entire tribes. Hell, some went over with the Spanish conquistadors, passed themselves off as gods and demanded regular human sacrifices as tribute. What would you have proposed the Baskervilles do?”

John’s mouth works for a moment, then snaps shut. “I--right. I don’t actually think I can argue this with you.”

John knows Sherlock’s past, and he knows Sherlock’s got a body count. He’s never asked for many details, and had never before really thought about it too hard. He knows quite a lot of people who’ve killed and wished they hadn’t, or killed people they shouldn’t have. His hands aren’t clean. But just now, he’d wouldn’t mind knowing a little more. Just to be sure. There’s killing a man in self-defense, and killing a man in cold blood, and then there’s industrialized, institutional murder.

Sherlock sighs tragically. “No.”

John raises his eyebrows.

“I never did. Ms. Baskerville mentioned the hunters in the shadows. I was one of those, although I favored mind games as a weapon over brute force.”

John frowns. “That’s...actually good to hear. So you never...” He squints out the window at the busy London night. “I don’t know...clubbed somebody over the head and sucked them dry?”

Sherlock snorts. “Dull.”

John rolls his eyes. “Ah, yes. Of course. Can always rely on you to do the right thing, so long as it’s the _easiest_ thing.”

When he looks back, Sherlock is staring out the window and will not meet his eyes.

\---

When the cab pulls up in front of 21 Wilton Crescent, it is just shy of midnight. It’s quiet on this street, and to the naked eye, abandoned.

Upstairs, someone is watching.

“Gwen, darling? We’ve visitors.”


	2. The More the Diamond Glitters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There’s a certain sort who can walk the tightrope between intellect and emotion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Pulling Your Insides Out by Jill Tracy

“Your brother sent you, you said?” asks the secretary, ushering Sherlock to a sofa.

“Yes. Quite urgent business. The Baskerville problem is becoming a nuisance again.”

She nods, frowning. “I’ll let Ms. Adler know you’re here.”

She disappears behind a pair of ornate wooden doors.

_The best lies are seeded with truth._

Sherlock narrows a critical eye at the room. _The house hasn’t been lived in for at least twenty years, but it’s been maintained: she owned it all this time and paid for it to be kept up. Evidence of frequent and thorough cleaning, regularly refinished floors...the entire society of Grimpen descendants could be stomping through here on a weekly basis and no one would be the wiser._

_That’s no secretary, though._

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes. A pleasure.”

The woman who emerges from the double doors is the kind of vampiress Victorian authors always wrote as coming for your innocent-minded daughters and seducing them with honeyed words and soft kisses. From the looks of Irene Adler, their fears were not unfounded.

She looks like the vamp out of a classic film, in a long, sheer green robe that ties around her waist like a kimono and hangs off her shoulders. Underneath she’s wearing stockings, suspenders and a black lace corset. She’s not wearing shoes, but her dark hair’s neatly done up and her makeup is immaculate. _Making a show of looking like she’s been just disturbed from her leisure, but she’s ready to leave in an instant._

Irene stops directly in front of him, looking down her aquiline nose and smiling. “I can smell a Baskerville on anyone.”

Sherlock inclines his head. Respect where it’s earned. “Very well. Then I trust you know the reason--”

“Oh, yes,” she says, turning, taking the seat across from him, crossing her legs and leaning forward. “It’s almost sweet, when she thinks I’m still the promiscuous little noble girl bought as a bride for her brother, but I’ve found that our elders’ efforts to involve themselves in our lives a bit...stifling. Have you?”

“Mm, not a problem I’d say I suffer from.”

Irene arches an eyebrow. “Come now. I’m older than you by three hundred years. There’s little I don’t see.”

“Is that so? Nearly twenty years with Caroline Baskerville and you don’t make your play until you’ve nearly been made? That’s not an act of revenge, that’s _espionage.”_

Irene smiles. “Is it?”

She whistles softly. Around the door steps a humongous white wolf with a dark stripe down her spine. She pads over to the chair and sits back on her haunches, watching Sherlock with ember-orange eyes.

“Ah.” He grimaces. “Not just a secretary, a bodyguard and a lycanthrope, she’s _the_ lycanthrope.”

“Gwen and I prefer the old words,” says Irene, stroking the wolf between the ears.

“The wolf, then.” _Gwen and I._ “Gwendolen Norton, of the old Dartmoor Nortons.”

“I knew one of those old Dartmoor Nortons. I watched my betrothed drag her to his room by her hair and bite her open while she screamed for the babe inside of her.”

Gwen growls. Irene strokes the back of her hand down her neck.

“Hush, love,” she soothes. “We won’t be long.”

“Won’t we?”

Irene sighs.

“You fail to explain the fundamental motivations at play here, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” She shakes her head. “You young ones...such naivete. I envy you that.”

She rises, strolls over to a window, and sits down on the ledge. “I do not remember my home. My parents had some sort of disagreement with the Hapsburgs and sent me away to Paris to be brought up in the court there as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. It was a good place for a girl to be brought up. I learned there. I drew attention.” She leans her head against the window, pressing her face against the cool glass. “Lord Hugo Baskerville made an offer for my hand when I was sixteen.”

Sherlock’s eyes flick to Gwen and back to Irene.

“It was a good offer. More than my parents could have hoped for. I was sent to England and married before my seventeenth birthday.” Irene runs the back of a nail down the windowpane. “On our wedding night, he showed me what he was, and what he kept, and he told me the family had need of a woman who could walk in the light. A...public relations representative, you might say.” She folds her hands in her lap. “What choice had I?”

The wolf rises to her feet and begins to slowly circle the room. Sherlock remains very still.

“I did what I could for the women and for the people of the town. It wasn’t much, but it was something. I served them so for ten years.”

“And then he made you another offer.”

Irene nods, smiling indulgently as if Sherlock is a little child who’s guessed the answer to a difficult question. “In return for my faithful service, he offered me the night.  I knew I could survive in better ways than they, and who was I to refuse eternal life?” She shrugs her robe higher on her shoulders. “The rest you know. I could not remain there and assist the women; they no longer trusted me. I left for London, and shortly thereafter the wolves of Grimpen rose up and drove the Baskervilles out. I alone escaped their revenge, as last thanks for the assistance I gave during my life.”

She slides off the windowsill and pulls the curtain shut. “So you see, Mr. Holmes, espionage and revenge are not mutually exclusive. There’s a certain sort who can walk the tightrope between intellect and emotion.”

“And you believe you are just that sort,” says Sherlock.

She smiles and inclines her head. “I’m flattered you think so. I wish I could say the same for you, Mr. Holmes, but I believe our time is nearly up. Gwen? Mr. Holmes requires your assistance.”

Gwen has stopped cold by the door, scenting the air. Sherlock’s lips curl in a smirk. Irene’s eyes narrow.

Down the hall, a window shatters, and there is the unmistakable roar of fire. Irene’s eyes widen, and her hand goes to her heart.

“Gwen!” Irene calls.

The wolf does not waste time threatening Sherlock. She bounds out the door and towards the source of the sound.

Sherlock rises and unbuttons his coat. “Well then, Ms. Adler,” he says, “shall you be retrieving the codes from out of that top, or must I? I’d really rather not.”

“Your wolf’s the jealous type, is he?” Irene says, shifting her weight back and inclining her head.

“Not a recognized symptom of lycanthropy, but a noticeable one.”

“Must we?” Irene asks, looking disappointed.

Sherlock gives her a sympathetic shake of his head. “My apologies.”

Irene sighs.

There is a shimmer of motion, and then a fierce, burning pain in Sherlock’s shoulder. He has just enough time to think _God she’s fast,_ before he’s stumbling backwards and bracing himself against the blow he knows is coming.

Irene comes in low, striking out at his ribcage. He takes the hit, wincing, and dives to the side and around her towards the door. There is another blur of movement, and Irene is blocking the door. Sherlock feints left. Irene cocks an eyebrow.

“I’m not that young, darling.”

The flames are visible outside the door. Irene feels the heat and shifts right, away from the door and towards the window. The room is filling up with smoke, and Sherlock’s vision is going hazy.

_Wait--_

“How are you feeling?” Irene asks, looking concerned. “You look dizzy, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps you should take a seat?”

He stumbles into the back of the sofa. “What--”

“Hawthorn sap, garlic and lemon,” says Irene. “An old folk tradition. From my homeland, as a matter of fact. It’s wonderful to know my people have left me something after all this time.”

_I’m on the ground. When did I--_

“I’ll be seeing you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

Another window shatters. Sherlock can see just well enough to catch a white blur of fur darting past him, and a flash of green silk out the window, before the center of his vision goes dark.

The smell of smoke is all-encompassing and distracting. The fire’s spread to the room, Sherlock suspects, judging from the heat. _John will be outside waiting. If I--_

 “John.” His voice doesn’t sound as loud as he can make it. “John!”

The sharp pain in his shoulder is more of a dull ache now, spreading down his arm, through his chest and up his neck to his face.

“John. _John...”_

“I’m here, I’m here.”

Sherlock sighs. He moves to gesture at the knife in his shoulder, but neither arm will cooperate quite enough to point. “Knife--”

“Got it.”

Sherlock stiffens and gasps. John has pulled the knife in one swift movement.

“Now up, _up,_ move!”

John yanks him more or less to his feet and half-carries him to the window. Sherlock’s not entirely balanced, though he can at least walk in a manner of speaking.

“Set a fire, John,” he grumbles. “Of course it’s not a rubbish plan, John. _I’ve everything got under control, John.”_

John shoves. Suddenly Sherlock is on the ground outside, vaguely irked that John has just pushed him out a window. John hits the ground beside him (on his feet; Sherlock is envious), grabs him by the wrists, and drags.

They’re just to the street when something blows and half the house goes up in flames all at once. The blast throws John to the ground. It takes him a moment to collect himself before he sits up, wincing.

“Did you get the codes?”

Sherlock rolls his head from side to side. “The woman,” he says, gesturing in no direction in particular. “The woman, she--”

“Fuck.” John collapses back onto the pavement. “Gimme a minute.”

Sherlock rolls over and pushes himself half up. “No. Come on, I’m--getting fine. Let’s go. Cab.”

People are starting to emerge from their houses to watch the blaze. Sherlock can hear the sirens eight--no, nine blocks away.

“Come _on!”_

His muscles having more or less recalled their strength, Sherlock seizes John round the waist, hauls him over his shoulder like a sack of flour (“HEY!”) and takes off.

They stop several streets away. Sherlock shakes his head like a dog, trying to throw off the last creeping tendrils of disorientation from Irene’s drug.

“She’ll be off to Dartmoor,” he says, scowling. “There’s a train in three hours. That should be enough time to--”

“Hang on,” says John, brushing grass and soot off his jumper. “Mycroft--”

Sherlock waves a hand. “Extenuating circumstances. Mycroft will understand.”

John rolls his eyes. “Why do I feel like someone’s playing us? Probably because someone is definitely playing us.”

A muscle in Sherlock’s jaw twitches. “The best way to spring a trap, John. Come. We’ve got bags to pack.”


	3. Our Dirty Little Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did not see that coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to Cin for ensuring I don't post some typo-ridden piece of shit. :D
> 
> Theme: A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay

They make it onto a 2AM train due to get into Plymouth just before sunrise. It’s cutting it close, but John has reasonable confidence that Sherlock can avoid being burnt to a crisp. He does alright in that respect. The trouble’s with things like feeding, breathing periodically when speaking so he can fuel the rest of his ridiculous run-on sentences, remembering how human morality works...

John knows it’s not exactly PC, but he thinks a bit of a person’s conscience goes quiet when they turn. Or maybe they do it on purpose. You’ve got to do something to rationalize your actions when you’ve got to kill human beings to eat. Sure, you can do things consensually now, but it wasn’t always that way, and making the change looks to be hard.

Many of the vampires of John’s acquaintance manage the guilt by telling themselves they took the “kinder option.” Others restricted themselves to murderers, rapists, child molesters, calling themselves vigilantes rather than serial killers. Then there are the straight-up psychotics who claim to be evolved humankind, some sort of “master race.” John puts little stock in those. A few simply refuse to acknowledge what they’ve done, who lock it up and hide it to rot. There are some who truly feel guilty, admit their wrongs and strive to make good.

In John’s experience, this is rarely done in earnest.

_The problem,_ he thinks, as he shoves his suitcase into the overhead compartment, _isn’t that Sherlock’s killed people. I’ve killed people. It’s that I don’t know how he’s living with it._

The car is otherwise empty. They sprang for first class, because Sherlock has the funds and John’s back cramps up in standard. Sherlock is settled in the window seat, his feet on the seat in front of him and his hands pressed together in front of his face.

“I’m all for diversity,” says John as he drops into his seat with a sigh, “but it’s a little odd being the only person with a heartbeat on the entire train.”

Sherlock does not react.

“So, Irene Adler.”

_There’s a bit of that scowl._

“Got you good there.”

Sherlock scowls. “I was unprepared for--”

“It really is faster to just say ‘yes, John, I went in more or less blind because I am a raging idiot who lives his life trying to stick it to his big brother,’” John says mildly. “Even faster: ‘I’m sorry I almost got myself killed, John.’”

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “Obviously I don’t need to express my opinions on the matter, as you’ve already decided them for me.”

Normally, John would roll his eyes at this and ignore it. But he’s tired, and he’s almost been killed, and _Sherlock’s_ almost been killed. There’s everything else simmering there, the fear that Sherlock’s not _living_ with his guilt because he doesn’t _have_ any, and at quarter after two in the morning John’s not really up for dealing with things in a mature and adult manner.

So instead of rolling his eyes and picking up a magazine, John explodes.

“You know what? Yeah, I did. Maybe because I’ve got answers I’d like to hear, and maybe just because _I_ am still _human,_ and have deluded myself into thinking I’m in love with a man who feels things like guilt and remorse and empathy.”

Sherlock’s hands lower. He shifts his eyes to John’s. That’s a small accomplishment, at least. “This is about the Baskervilles.”

John laughs, sharp and bloody. He doesn’t like the sound, he doesn’t like _this,_ the way he’s being, but he’s not stopping. “The Baskervilles are a start, yeah. Do you remember what it’s like, being weak and breakable and human? Can you remember that, think about what those women might have felt? _Care_ at all?”

“Will caring about them bring them to life again?” he snaps. “Will it give them back their daughters? Will it free them from their captors? Will hating Caroline Baskerville undo what she’s done?”

“No--”

“Then I’ll continue not to care.”

“And that’s easy for you, is it?”

Sherlock’s jaw works. “I do not have the luxury of deciding who is in the wrong.”

“No. But you do have the opportunity to help the people in the right.”

Sherlock looks for a moment as if he is about to argue this point too. Then his mouth sets, he leans back and looks out the window again.

John reclines his seat, rolls onto his side, and tries not to let what he’s said replay itself through his head for the next three hours.

The cab ride to the inn passes in the same chilly silence. John takes care of paying the cabbie and checking into the hotel as Sherlock sullenly hauls their suitcases up the stairs.

The receptionist eyes Sherlock nervously. “Is he...” he says hesitantly.

“Yeah,” says John. “And a heads-up, I’ll be a bit furry tomorrow night. Don’t worry; I don’t bite. That’s what I keep that one around for.” He grins.

“You won’t be the only thing barking round these parts, that’s for sure.” The receptionist laughs, relieved. “If you don’t mind me asking, business or pleasure?”

“Bit of both,” says John evasively.

Upstairs, Sherlock is just hanging up the phone. “Yes, tomorrow.” He tucks the phone into his jacket pocket. “Caroline Baskerville won’t be arriving until much later tonight. _She_ _advises_ we attempt to assess the extent of the lycanthrope conspiracy in town.” “She advises” was pronounced with the kind of contempt typically reserved for things Mycroft wished of him, and films John liked.

“I’ve got to catch some sleep,” says John, unzipping his suitcase and rummaging about for his pyjamas. “Don’t imagine I’ll see much the next couple days.”

“Mm,” says Sherlock, who is unpacking his laptop.

Sighing heavily, John falls into bed.

\---

Sherlock’s phone buzzes. _Mycroft,_ the screen informs him. He ignores it.

One hand at his mouth, he scrolls through Ms. Baskerville’s personnel files. Her principle staff is small: her PA, Laura Stapleton; her chief of security, Charles Barrymore; and her housekeeper, Margaret Barrymore. All biotypical, Grimpen natives, all clean of personal or familial connections to the wolves, all handpicked by Ms. Baskerville.

He taps out a text. _Who performed the security checks? SH_

The response comes through less than a minute later. _Outsourced to sanguinarian contractor. Ivy Marinos._

Sherlock narrows his eyes at the name. _Marinos, Ivy. Where have I...oh._

The next time Mycroft calls, Sherlock picks up.

_“Anthea_ was Ivy Marinos from, what, 1991 through 2002?”

Mycroft sighs heavily. “I _told_ you--”

“You told me not to get involved. You didn’t tell me _you_ already were.”

“The only thing worse for our public image than the wolves of the Baskervilles are the Baskervilles and their history. You have to--”

Sherlock’s nostrils flare. “Ah, of course. _Our image_. Can’t have your little brother caught working with peoplelike _that.”_

“I must say I’m surprised. I didn’t think you had such strong feelings towards the subject of sanguinarian independence.”

“And you have such strong feelings _against_ it? Please, Mycroft. You only oppose it because it’s more _comfortable_ for you if everyone thinks you a _tame_ monster.”

“I am a tame monster,” says Mycroft mildly. “At least _I_ am not a _tamed_ one. John accompanied you? I would have thought he would register objections to the nature of the case.”

“Goodbye, Mycroft.”

Sherlock ends the call. It makes him miss older phones and the satisfaction of slamming one down when a call had ended poorly. He briefly toys with the idea of chucking his mobile at the wall, but it’s a nice phone and he’d rather not have to find a replacement in the middle of the countryside.

_Why_ are _you working with the Baskervilles?_ something whispers in the back of his head.

_The Baskervilles aren’t presently breaking the law._

_And the law is your primary concern?_

Sherlock presses his thin lips together, slaps a hand into the desk, pushes away and rises to his feet.

_My hair still smells of fire._

He strides off into the bathroom and starts a shower.

_You know what your primary concern is. You always have._

He strips off his clothes and tosses them out the door and onto the chair.

_Your primary concern is you._

He steps into the shower, ducks his head under the spray, and sighs as his mind goes mercifully quiet.

The people of the town, or at least those who frequent the cafe attached to the inn in which Sherlock and John are staying, will be reluctant to speak to a sanguinarian. A sensible precaution, Sherlock reasons. Rather than attempt direct interrogation, he takes a seat in the corner with his laptop and makes himself look busy while he observes the people.

By the end of the day, he’s reorganized the tags on his entries at The Science of Deduction, fixed the labeling in his music library, and left several scalding comments on John’s blog. More importantly he’s got a working idea of the extent of the lycanthrope conspiracy in Grimpen.

_The sample bias is problematic, but it’ll have to do. In nine and a half hours, fifty-four biotypicals and eighteen lycanthropes have entered the cafe. That’s a lycanthrope for every three biotypicals. If the rest of the town is the same, you could expect a quarter of the population to be werewolves, about twice the national average._

_Thirteen of those eighteen were female, every one of whom (possibly excepting one) carries active cases of the Dartmoor strain of LV8, judging by the observable frequency of their transformations. None were immediately related to any others, but all arrived in groups of other lycanthropes, and every one left after noticing me._

Sherlock grinns. _Ready or not..._

He is just packing his laptop up when a well-muscled young woman with braided hair blocks his exit.

“Got someone who’d like to see ya,” she says, nodding towards the back room.

“And if I’d rather go back upstairs?”

She raises her eyebrows. “You wouldn’t want to start a scene now, Mr. Holmes.”

Sighing dramatically, Sherlock sets his laptop down. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he says, and stalks off into the back room.

It turns out to be a dimly lit wine cellar of sorts. In the middle of the room, wearing a black fur coat with a high collar, is Irene Adler.

She smiles. “Hello, Sherlock. Pleasure to see you again.”

His nostrils flare. “Ms. Adler. I wish I could say the same.”

Irene tilts her head to the side a few degrees and smiles indulgently. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather dispense with the pleasantries.”

Sherlock sneers. “Let me guess. You want to _call_ _me_ _off_. Send me packing before I can find who you’ve planted in Caroline Baskerville’s employ.”

“Not at all.” Irene takes a step closer, perhaps a centimeter too close to be comfortable.

“I want you to help us take Baskerville Hall.”

Sherlock hisses in a breath between his teeth.

_I did not see that coming._

\---

John awakes, entirely unsurprised, to an empty room.

He sighs and rolls out of bed. First order of business: shower. He still reeks of kerosene and smoke, and it’s wearing on his nerves. His sense of smell is ramped way up, being less than twenty-four hours from the full moon. His system recognizes the odors of arson as danger and it sets his teeth on edge.

John does most of his thinking in the shower. He’s not Sherlock, so he doesn’t much see the appeal in spending hours lying about wrapped up in his own head. But in the shower, it’s either that or read the shampoo bottles.

_Yeah, technically Adler and her people are in the wrong. Breaking and entering, blackmail, conspiracy to murder...not exactly innocent. But it’s justified. I think so, at least. Most people would._

_Sherlock doesn’t._

_Can you blame him?_

_You’re bloody right I can. When he’s siding with them because he’s bored, and because he wants to piss off his brother, yes I fucking can._

John comes out of the shower wrapped in naught but a towel to find a naked vampire on the bed.

Sherlock is curled on his side and facing John, hands folded under his chin. His eyes are open, glassy, and unfixed. The body language is unfamiliar, and that’s...worrying. It’s not quite his thinking posture. That’s all stiffness and sharp angles. This is full of tangles and unexpected gentle curves and a sort of listlessness.

“Hey,” says John tentatively, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Sherlock focuses his eyes, flicks his eyes up to meet John’s. “I’m...not very good,” he says. “I know that.”

John’s brow furrows. “Sherlock--”

“I can act...rashly. I rely on...technicalities as moral guides. It’s necessary, but it can be--imprecise.”

John bites his lip. “You’re saying that--most of the time what’s against the law is also what’s wrong, but it messes you up when the criminals are the ones in the right.”

“Mm, more or less.” Sherlock stretches an arm out and touches two fingers to John’s leg. “Will you--trust me? I’ve worked it out now, all of it. If I promise you this will end well, will you trust me?”

John grimaces. “I--”

“Please.”

He sighs, reaches out, and smooths his thumb over Sherlock’s temple. “Yeah. I’ll trust you.”

Sherlock sighs. His eyelids flutter shut. There’s a hot, fierce feeling in the pit of John’s stomach.

“I’m sorry I said you weren’t human.”

“I’m not.”

“Shut up.”

John pulls his legs up onto the bed, lies down next to Sherlock and bumps their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry I almost died.”

“Damn right you are,” John growls, and chases Sherlock’s mouth down.

It could be the moon getting to him, but Sherlock feels almost impossibly pliable tonight. Where John pushes, he gives. It’s nothing like the usual dangerous, domineering creature that John lets devour him. His fangs come down slowly, John’s tongue rubbing at the gums and guiding them down.

“Hungry?” he murmurs.

Sherlock nods wordlessly. John wriggles out of the towel and tosses it onto the floor. “Thigh?”

Sherlock’s response is to widen his eyes and gasp, which John calls a definite yes. He rolls onto his back, pulling Sherlock with him and settling his feet on both sides of Sherlock’s knees. Sherlock leans over him, plants his elbows on both sides and scrapes his teeth softly at John’s collar bone, which never fails to make John groan and buck his hips up. Neither of them’s fully hard, but they’re both getting there. Sherlock trails a line of bites down John’s torso, over chest, nipple, ribs, stomach, and hipbone, hooks a hand under John’s knee and gently draws his leg outward.

John’s busy trying to get enough air into his lungs, because the last thing he wants is to faint in the middle of this. Sherlock plants kisses, open-mouthed and wet, at the bared skin of John’s inner thigh. John grabs blindly, one hand fisting in Sherlock’s hair and the other in the sheets.

“Come _on_. Do it.”

Sherlock’s fangs are pressed hard against his flesh, just short of puncturing. _This could kill me,_ John thinks wildly, not even meaning the part where he lets a vampire drain his blood.

It feels like years before his skin breaks. There’s the brief moment of pain, and then the overwhelming warmth blossoming outwards. John feels it like the tide, a gentle tugging sensation deep inside. For now, he is temperate, quiescent.

John’s hands fall to his sides. He rubs the heels of them up and down the sheets. The feel of the fabric is enticingly soothing. He lets himself get lost, drifts on the waves, until he feels the teeth piercing him sliding up and out. He groans a little at the loss, but it’s cut off when a warm, velvety tongue licks a stripe up his shaft.

_“Oh.”_

He looks down just in time to see Sherlock’s silver eyes flashing at him as he slips his lips over the head of John’s cock.

John tips his head back and moans. Whatever self-control he’s got left is divided between keeping his lungs operational and not thrusting up into that _fantastic_ mouth wrapped around his prick. He clutches at Sherlock’s shoulder with one hand and winds the fingers of his other hand through Sherlock’s hair. He tugs, just short of painful, and Sherlock moans against him.

“Oh, _holy shit,”_ John gasps.

Sherlock’s mouth is sliding down his shaft and back up at a luxuriously slow pace, with a little flick of his tongue around the glans. John combs his hair back from his face so he can watch his cheeks hollow and has to drop his head back to the side before he comes _right there_.

Sherlock draws his mouth slowly down again, then up and off, letting the head fall out of the circle of his lips with a little pop.

“Jesus _God,”_ says John, staring.

“Want you to fuck me,” Sherlock says, dark and wanting. “You taste like _bloodlust_ tonight.”

John cannot blame the blood loss for the resultant lightheadedness.

“Oh, _fuck._ Did you unpack the--”

Sherlock snorts derisively.

“Then _get_ _it.”_

Sherlock has a bit of a time getting the lube out of the bedside table, as neither of them are willing to stop touching each other, but eventually he’s straddling John’s waist with the tube in his hand. He takes John’s wrist, squeezes a dollop onto his first two fingers and guides the hand behind his balls.

“Go on,” he snarls.

The two fingers go in easy. Sherlock lets out a deep groan that shudders as John pushes the fingers up, up, up, until he’s buried to the hand. When he tries to pull out a few inches, Sherlock gives a broken gasp and bends his knees, chasing John’s hand down.

“Oh my _God_. _”_

“Hurry up,” Sherlock demands. John is positive he thinks he sounds much more authoritative than he does.

He gets hold of Sherlock’s hips with his free hand and tries to still them. It’s quite a job, and when he pulls his fingers almost all the way out and slips in a third he gives up entirely and lets Sherlock do the bulk of the work.

“Now,” he growls a few minutes later, pale skin flushed with the aid of John’s blood in him. “Do it _now.”_

Sherlock half-sobs at the loss of John’s fingers, but John is prepared for it. He braces one hand on Sherlock’s waist and with the other guides the head of his cock against Sherlock. He doesn’t have to push up. Sherlock presses down, taking his entire shaft in one slow, smooth movement. John chokes back a gasp.

“Yes,” Sherlock sighs, rocking forward a little and back again.

It’s good with Sherlock riding him, because John hardly has to work at all. He draws his knees up so Sherlock can lean back against his legs.

“Oh,” he groans. “There-- _yes--”_

He’s found that if he keeps his movements shallow and angles his hips just so, he can glide the fat head of John’s cock against his prostate on every downstroke. He shakes his hair out of his eyes and pushes his body up and down, short and quick, panting with every movement. He squeezes his eyes shut and wraps one hand around his shaft, pulling urgently.

John’s been speaking in nothing but swear words for a good fifteen minutes, and he’s about to actually shake apart if he doesn’t come soon. His ribcage feels like it’s going to crack from the effort of breathing, and he’s got a cramp in his fingers from gripping at Sherlock’s hips. God knows what’s happening to Sherlock.

John covers the hand on Sherlock’s cock with his own. “Close?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sherlock spits.

“Oh my _God.”_ John grits his teeth and tips his head back. “I’m--Sherlock, I’m--”

Sherlock laughs darkly. “Yes, do it, come in me, I want you to, come so hard you won’t be able to _move_ after.”

Shouting, John does, thrusting hard up into Sherlock as deeply as he can. He’s just lying back into the pillows and letting the tension in his muscles unwind when he feels Sherlock tense and shudder, followed by the warm, wet burst of semen on John’s belly.

Sherlock falls off of him and to the side, immediately wrapping an arm around John and pulling him close. Sherlock’s always the warmest when he’s well-fed and well-sexed, his skin the pinkest, even though he’s still too pale to be entirely human-looking. He’s also unreasonably free of sweat. John’s expressed the unfairness of this before and was surprised by Sherlock’s look of utter perplexity.

“I _like_ the sweat,” he explained. “It keeps you smelling like _you.”_

John, having supernaturally powerful smell for half the month himself, was able to take this as the compliment it was intended.

“I’m not bleeding on the sheets, am I?” John mumbles.

“No.”

“You’re not leaking excessive fluids all over the sheets?”

“Mm...not excessive. Housekeeping will change the sheets after we go to Baskerville Hall.”

John blinks a few times, trying to shake off the postcoital fatigue. “Are we going tonight?”

“Caroline Baskerville got in about an hour ago. She’ll call when she’s ready. Until then, I find myself in the rare situation of being both in the middle of a case and having nothing to do for it at the time.”

John smoothes his hair from his forehead. “I just want to mention one last time,” he says, “how very thoroughly I despise that woman and everything she stands for.”

Sherlock fixes his pale silver eyes on him. “But you trust me.”

John nods and kisses him chastely on the lips. “Yeah.”


	4. In Your Darkest Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So all around, state of the art and pretty fucking deadly, got it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Cin, my beta, for fixing the ridiculous mistakes I make when I decide to write a chapter while accidentally high.
> 
> Theme: Meet Your Master, Nine Inch Nails

Caroline Baskerville calls around two in the morning, with her apologies. She promises a car in ten minutes. It pulls up outside after nine minutes forty-five.

“You’ll want to bring your luggage,” she informed them over the phone. “We’re making an effort to minimize arrivals and departures.”

_That’s for sure,_ John thinks, as the car pulls up to a guard booth in front of a tall gate, the sort more natural at a military base than someone’s country home. He notes two security cameras aimed at both sides of the car

“Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson,” the driver says clearly, “on the invitation of Ms Baskerville.” He flashes something to the attendant, who nods and punches something into a keypad. Rattling loudly, the gate slides to the side, and the car pulls through.

Sherlock sniffs the air as the driver rolls his window up. “Smell that?” he says to John.

He nods, grimacing.

Baskerville Hall is a dark, sprawling manor, and looks like a Victorian effort at a Tudor hunting hall. That’s odd, considering that it really _is_ a Tudor hunting hall, but John supposes there’ve been some reconstruction efforts over the years. Caroline Baskerville is waiting at the door, flanked by a portly, middle-aged woman in a dark, floral dress and a pretty girl with dark hair and light olive skin in a pinstriped business suit.

The middle-aged woman comes to John’s aid as he’s lifting his suitcase out of the boot of the cab. “I can take care of that, Dr Watson,” she says.

John’s about to protest, but the woman hauls his suitcase and Sherlock’s out of the taxi and over her shoulders with ease. “Er, thank you.”

“My housekeeper, Mrs Barrymore,” says Ms Baskerville. “She’ll take your things to your room. I thought perhaps we could speak while we walked?”

_It’s easy to believe she’s a charming woman,_ John thinks, as Ms Baskerville smiles, showing a truly marvelous set of dimples. _Had to be, I suppose, as a woman in the time she was born in. Pity she’s a murderous--_

Sherlock nods curtly. “Of course.”

The interior of Baskerville Hall is an odd combination of contemporary and antique. The wood paneling and elaborate sconces dimly lighting the rooms are all vintage, but there’s a digital keypad by the door that the dark-haired girl is punching a code into, covering the numbers with her hand as she does, and cameras concealed in the corners.

“I would like to speak to all the members of your staff with access to the security system controls,” says Sherlock as they follow Ms Baskerville up the stairs and down the long hallway to the left. The dark-haired girl peels off down the right with a nod and a murmured “excuse me.”

“That can be arranged,” says Ms Baskerville.

“Alone, and in an area not under surveillance.”

Her lips thin. “If it is absolutely necessary--”

“It is, thank you,” Sherlock says swiftly, cutting her off smoothly. John hides his grin.

“The panic room is kept only a private security feed. I can disable it for the time being.”

Sherlock smiles warmly. It’s the one he uses when he’s trying to convince someone’s granny he’s a friendly and trustworthy sort, for instance, and John’s surprised Ms Baskerville seems to be going for it. “My thanks. Additionally, I’ll need a detailed description of your security system and how it operates. I understand you’ve physical deterrents in the grounds. I’ll need to know where they are and how they’re triggered.”

If possible, Ms Baskerville looks even less pleased at this request. But it’s not unreasonable, so she nods. “I’ll have my head of security Mr Barrymore bring them by.”

“Married?” John asks.

“Brother and sister. Very old family. Strong ties with the Baskervilles, you might say.” Ms Baskerville smiles. John is mildly surprised not to see her fangs out.

They stop in front of a pair of double doors. Mrs Barrymore is just emerging. She ducks her head down and hurries down the hall, cuing a small smirk from Ms Baskerville.

“Nervous sort,” she says carelessly. “Mr Barrymore should be by momentarily. In the meantime, you can unpack your things. I’ll send Laura by when the room’s ready.”

Their room looks like it could’ve been Henry VIII’s. Their suitcases are sitting on top of a steamer trunk at the foot of a four-poster bed complete with curtains. The room’s furnished with a fireplace, a rosewood wardrobe, a red velvet chaise lounge, an ornate plantation desk...

“It’s definitely a step up from the inn,” says John, raising his eyebrows and surveying the room.

“Shut the door,” says Sherlock, who’s already got his laptop out. “And it would not go unappreciated if you’d start unpacking our things.”

With a roll of his eyes, John does.

He’s gotten through all of his clothes and is starting in on Sherlock’s when there’s a knock on the door. John opens it to find a tall, gruff-looking man with graying hair holding a manila folder.

“James Barrymore,” he says, and offers the folder.

A skinny arm comes out around John and snatches the folder.

“Thanks,” says John, giving an apologetic shrug. “We’ll be in touch.”

He shuts the door. Sherlock is sitting cross-legged on the bed, spreading the contents of the folder across the duvet.

“You know, you could _ask_ for things. Use your words.”

“Tedious. Finish unpacking, would you? When you’re done you need to look at these; I can interpret them easily, but I want to know how an average mind sees them.”

“God, you are a _right pain in my arse,”_ John says through gritted teeth, pushing his empty suitcase into a corner with a bit of unnecessary venom. “I really want you to know that. A _right bloody pain.”_

Sherlock’s eyes flash up from the pages. “You promised to trust me.”

John sighs. “Yeah, I did. I trust you, you great fucking prick.”

There’s a flicker of a smile at that, and then the detective’s attention is focused on the pages in front of him again.

Ten minutes later, John’s frowning at the schematics and pages of technical language, fairly sure he’s mostly made heads or tails of it.

“Okay, I know about the silver mines in the grounds, smelled them on the way in. The top of the wall’s electrified, which there’s not much of a point to, considering it’s five meters high and a meter thick and goes all the way round. That’s it?”

“That, and the guards armed with treated bullets.”

“So all around, state of the art and pretty fucking deadly, got it. And the gist of it is, there’s two sets of codes that can turn off the mines and high-voltage fence and nonsense.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, who’s busy with his phone. “One personalized to the individual attempting access, the other to turn off the system.”

“So it’s like--the username and password, and then the code that switches off the system.”

“Mm, more or less.”

“And Irene Adler’s got the second, but she needs someone with the first to put it in.”

_“Yes.”_

“So, the only people who know the _second_ code are Irene Adler and Caroline Baskerville, and the only people with _first_ codes are Caroline Baskerville, Laura Stapleton, James Barrymore and this Dr James Mortimer fellow.”

“Exactly. Ms Baskerville is concerned _The Woman_ or one of her compatriots may have control over one of them and would like us to alleviate those fears.”

“But--even if she did, how’s Irene Adler going to get the code to them? Text it?”

Sherlock sighs. “God, it must be tiring not being me. Her secretary was using a pad and pencil. Not an iPad or a tablet computer, a _pad and pencil_. Caroline Baskerville’s cut off all their contact outside the Hall. I’ll wager we and that driver are the only things to pass through the gate since this nonsense started, and...” He peers out the window. “The driver’s still here. Under lock and key, I’d imagine.”

John shakes his head. “I’d no idea.”

“Thankfully, I did.”

“So where is it all controlled from? This panic room she’s got?”

“Here,” says Sherlock, tapping the blueprint. “‘Panic room’ isn’t quite the proper term; think of a military bunker.”

“Good God,” says John, shocked. “For her _house?”_

“This won’t be the first time Baskerville Hall’s been besieged. It was razed practically to the ground in the mid-nineteenth century.”

John nods. _Explains the way the outside looks._ “And the security system’s designed to be controlled from this...bunker.”

“There’s a sort of conference room here, with CCTV feeds from all over the grounds. The control panel is there.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Sherlock nods, brow wrinkling. “As do I.”

“Oh?”

“You’re a bright man, and you could barely make heads or tails of all of this. I suspect even Stapleton, Mortimer and Barrymore know little more than their access code. Caroline Baskerville would keep them relatively in the dark--maybe not Mr Barrymore; he’s head of security--until danger is imminent. Only then would she explain precisely how the system operates and where it’s connected to.”

“Oh. So if any of the others know exactly how it’s all set up--”

“--then they’ve had it explained.”

John grins. “Brilliant.”

Sherlock smirks.

There’s another knock at the door. “It’s Laura Stapleton. I’m here to take you down to the panic room.”

“Yeah, come on in,” John calls, shrugging his jacket back on.

Sherlock shuts his laptop, tucks it under his arm, and gives the dark-haired girl a nod. “Well, then. Lead away.”

She takes them back down the stairs, through the kitchen and to the pantry. She works her fingers up under a loose board in the wall, revealing a keypad, and punches in a combination. A panel in the back lowers into the floor with a hydraulic hiss, opening into a long staircase. “Sorry about the fit,” she says. “You’ll want to duck.”

_Definitely more military bunker than “panic room,”_ John thinks as she leads them into a room directly off the stairs.

It’s fairly sparse, containing only a long table, chairs, a cluster of monitors displaying different areas of the grounds, and a computer screen and keyboard attached to the wall. _Control panel._

Laura Stapleton shuts the door behind her and takes a seat. She gives a little nervous laugh. “Suppose I’m first up, then?”  
John smiles, trying to look friendly. To his surprise, he finds it’s unnecessary.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” says Sherlock, sitting next to her and leaning in. “It’s all perfectly routine.”

John sits across from them, folding his hands on top of the table and trying to look neutral but friendly.

Laura laughs again, shaking her head into her hands. “Everything’s just been simply awful lately. I haven’t been able to talk to my sister in weeks.”

“Just a few questions,” Sherlock repeats. “Not even taking notes, see?” He grins, looking for all the world like someone’s friendly uncle. “Alright then, Ms Stapleton--is Laura okay?”

She nods.

He gives her a sympathetic smile. “Laura, then. You said you have a sister. Is she from the area?”

Laura swallows. “Erm, yeah. We grew up here.”

“Any other family in the area?”

“Not anymore, and Henriette lives in Manchester now.”

“Any family history of lycanthropy?”

She shakes her head vehemently. “None at all, Dartmoor or otherwise. None of us do; we’ve all been checked.”

“I know, I know, we just like to make sure.” He pats her hand soothingly. “Now, Irene Adler. You’ve met her, correct?”

Laura bites her lip and nods. “Yeah. Just professional, though. She ran most of her bookings through me, that sort of thing.”

“Last question, I promise. You’ve got access to the security mainframe, correct?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how it works, really. Ms Baskerville and Mr Barrymore are the only ones who know it in and out.”

Sherlock nods, smiling. “Okay, Laura, that’s very helpful. Very helpful indeed. You’re free to go. Have you notified Mr Barrymore and Dr Mortimer, or--”

“Yeah,” she says, rising and shaking Sherlock’s hand. “They’re outside. I’ll let them know.”

“Thanks again,” Sherlock says, smiling wildly.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Sherlock wrinkles his nose and makes a face. “God, that’s uncomfortable.”

“Strain a muscle?”

Sherlock glares.

“Worth it.”

His eyes gleam. “Definitely.”

The door swings open again. Mr Barrymore flops down into the chair just abandoned by Laura Stapleton.

“Let me save you a bit of time,” he growls out. “Yeah, I know the security in this place like the back of my bleedin’ hand, got no wolf in the family to speak of, and I never liked that Adler woman. Was the one to tell Ms Baskerville she was in contact with the Norton woman, matter of fact.”

Sherlock nods tersely. “That’s very helpful, Mr Barrymore, very helpful indeed. What is the extent of your access to the security mainframe?”  
He nods to the computer in the wall. “Got my code, know to go to Ms Baskerville if need be for the second. Ask me, it should be easier to _arm_ the damn things than _disarm_ them, but that’s what the lady asked for.”

“Very well. That’s all we’ll be needing.”

Mr Barrymore shrugs. “No complaints here. Plenty of work to do.”

Dr Mortimer follows him straightaway. He’s a short, stocky man with glasses and white hair, despite his relative youth. John would guess him at sixty, tops.

“Mr Holmes,” he says with a nod, “Dr Watson.”

He takes his seat. Sherlock sits across from him, next to John, and leans forward.

“Are you from the area?”  
“Not that I know of. I’m from Gloucester originally.”

“Any history of lycanthropy in your family?”

“No, none. Got a cousin who’s a sanguinarian though.”

“How far does your security access here go?”

“I’ve got an access code.” He grins, and the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes wrinkle. “No bloody idea where to put it.”

Sherlock half returns the grin. “Did you know Irene Adler?”

“Mostly by name. I spend most of my time at Baskerville Hall, and Ms Baskerville liked to stay in London when she was with Ms Adler. Met her face-to-face maybe once, twice.”

Sherlock nods. “That’ll be all. Thank you.”

As the door half-shuts behind him, Laura Stapleton reappears. “Ms Baskerville’s asked me to turn the security feed in here back on now. If you don’t mind--”

“We can take ourselves back upstairs,” says Sherlock, pulling his phone from his pocket.

Sherlock doesn’t say a word on the trek back to their room. As the door latches shut, he sits down on the edge of the bed and frowns at his phone.

“Have you got it, then?” John asks, leaning back against the door and folding his arms across his chest.

“Of course,” says Sherlock.

“Well, then who--damn it all, what the hell are you _doing_ on that phone that’s so--”

“Telling Caroline Baskerville it’s James Barrymore.”

John’s eyebrows climb. “Mr Barrymore?”

“Did you not hear me the first time?”

“Sorry, I--it’s Mr Barrymore.”

“No,” says Sherlock, typing something into his phone, “but that’s what we’re telling Caroline Baskerville.”

John clenches and unclenches his hands, bites his lip, and shakes his head. “Er, no, sorry, still not following.”

Sherlock sighs tragically. “Does your ability to think logically wax and wane with the moon as well? It’s _Laura Stapleton.”_

“...oh?”

Sherlock raises his eyebrows and tilts his head down, not breaking eye contact with his phone, obviously making an effort to not further criticize John’s inability to follow.

“Baskerville’s feeding on her, and not consensually from the looks of it. Likely she’s got some kind of threat over her sister. Baskerville would’ve offered a taste to her lover, who would’ve turned it down--image as an excuse, or similar. Laura sees a chance, she takes it, and _voila_. A partnership is born.”

John laughs. “I can’t believe it.”

Sherlock scowls.

“You’re doing a _good thing.”_

“I took the path of--”

“Oh, leave me the delusion then. Christ, I could _kiss_ you.”

At that, Sherlock looks up from his phone. The corner of his mouth curls up in a half-smirk. “Not quite yet, John, if you don’t mind; I’m waiting on some important information from a lady and her dog. So unless you’d rather be caught by _surprise_ when a hundred werewolves descend upon us tonight--”

“Too bad,” says John, and kisses Sherlock anyways.

His phone dings. He ducks away to check it. “Yes!” he exclaims. He shows John the text.

_From: C. Baskerville. James Barrymore taken care of. My gratitude for your assistance._

“Child’s play,” Sherlock says. “Gullible woman. These old types are nowadays. Look like one of their sort of vampire and they’ll believe anything you say.”

His phone dings again.

_From: The Woman. It’s been a pleasure, Mr Holmes. 9PM._

“You--you’ve got her phone number.”

Sherlock shrugs.

“Look at you, conspiring to be a good person behind my back.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

John climbs up onto the bed, straddles Sherlock’s thighs, plucks the phone from his hand and sets it on the bedside table. He doesn’t fight.

_Good,_ John thinks wryly, _that means game’s on._

“You know,” he murmurs, “it’s been...oh, a fair three hours since I fucked you.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, and Sherlock’s eyes come up to meet his dark and wanting.

“You good for a second round? I mean, I don’t think I can spare much more blood, but--”

Sherlock catches his mouth and kisses him hungrily, seizing his wrists and pinning them down. The copper taste of blood blooms across his tongue, and he moans, going half-boneless on top of Sherlock.

Sherlock tugs one-handed at John’s jacket. _“Off,”_ he demands into John’s mouth.

There’s a lot of thrashing and skinny limbs flying, and a few buttons meet their end, but eventually they’re curled together on the bed, with John scraping his teeth down Sherlock’s spine.

“Fucking _tease,”_ Sherlock spits. _“Bite_ me, I know you want to, _do_ it.”

_“Fuck,”_ John snarls, and sinks his teeth into the curve of neck and shoulder.

The growl that rises from Sherlock’s throat is the sexiest, most _perfect_ fucking thing John has _ever_ heard.

“Fight me,” Sherlock demands. “Come on, make me.”

He rolls over and tries to pin John down, but they’re less than twenty-four hours from a full moon, and John can _take_ him.

John catches him by the shoulder and throws him backwards, crawls down the bed, straddles him at the waist and pins his hands to the bed. Sherlock’s laughing darkly as John smears his mouth down his chest, and then he’s gasping, because John’s biting at his ribcage and not holding back one fucking bit.

“You want a fight?” John squeezes the wrists in his hands, already cooler than they were hours ago, the skin already less pink. “I’ll give you a fucking fight.”

Some time later, John’s swearing to fuck Sherlock and only Sherlock for the rest of forever.

He’s got Sherlock on all fours, gripping the headboard so tight it’s actually cracked, and is fucking him with the kind of venom that might hurt anyone else. Sherlock, for his part, is still half-laughing, even though John’s pounding into his arse so hard he should be _screaming_. He can’t manage real words or even real laughs, which is a small triumph.

“Jesus, you’re fucking _perfect,”_ John gasps, pistoning in and out of Sherlock. “I need you, need to feel you coming, need it so _fucking_ badly. God, what have you done to me?”

Sherlock’s laugh cuts off halfway into a groan. He arches his back. “Make me,” he gasps. “Make me come.”

John screws up his face and buries it in Sherlock’s hair. “Fuck,” he spits, his clinging grip on Sherlock’s hips tightening, squeezing, wishing he could bruise, just this once, and then he sinks his teeth into the back of Sherlock’s neck and they come shouting, seconds apart.

John is unconscious almost as soon as he hits the mattress, despite the adrenaline in his system.

“Get some rest,” Sherlock says, unnecessarily. “Sun’s been up for a while and we’ve got hours before moonrise.”

“Mm,” John says into his pillow.

The last thing he hears before dropping off into sleep is Sherlock with his phone to his ear, speaking in a low voice.

_Remember to ask him who it was in the morning,_ he thinks. _You’d damn well better..._


	5. Tear Out All Your Tenderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John throws his head back and howls.
> 
> There’s an answering howl. Many, too many for Sherlock to separate the voices and count. Fifty at the least. More than anticipated. That could be--problematic--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait! I had just finished the previous chapter when one of my oldest friends committed suicide very suddenly, and that sort of derailed...everything. But I'm back on track again, which is good. :)
> 
> In related news, if you ever need someone to talk to, and I mean ever, my Tumblrs are greencarnations/songlinwrites. Send me an ask. If I'm on, I'll respond. Don't kill yourself. I've been there, myself and others. Don't fucking do it.
> 
> _Theme: Pompeii by ES Posthumus_

_Pompeii, ES Posthumus_

Mycroft picks up after the first ring. _Expecting the call._ Sherlock’s lip curls.

“Good morning, Sherlock. This is unexpected.”

Sherlock scowls. “Spare me the scripted response, Mycroft.”

He glances quickly back at John. Sherlock knows he’s not awake, but it won’t hurt to make sure of it.

“It’ll be over by midnight. Would you like the key by post or will you be sending _Anthea_ by?”

_“Sherlock.”_

“I don’t work for you, Mycroft.”

“I felt your--set of skills--”

_“Please. You_ felt nothing. I’m the only person in the country Caroline Baskerville would believe she could trust with this job. _You_ did nothing but play your damned games.”

There is a moment of crackling silence. Sherlock feels a brief surge of vindictive triumph.

“I apologize for--not keeping you informed,” Mycroft says at last.

“I don’t enjoy being _played,_ Mycroft.”

“--I feared that were I more upfront, you might not be willing to--”

“What are you playing at, Mycroft?” says Sherlock. “You don’t need Baskerville Hall. Between Newton Abbey and Wold Park--”

“I should remind you that _you_ own Newton Abbey--”

“--you don’t need a _house,_ regardless of location or history or security. What are you playing at?”

Mycroft sighs from very low down. “The same game,” he says. “The same game I-- _we_ have always been playing. With the same man.”

Sherlock goes very calm and still. Had he a heartbeat, it would be racing.

“He was dead.”

“He _was.”_

“How long have you known?”

“Sherlock--”

_“How long?”_

“He’s been active for no more than two years.” Sherlock hisses out a breath in a sound halfway to a growl, but Mycroft continues. “We’ve kept eyes on him, but he’s stayed to the shadows. Now all of a sudden he’s on the move. Involving himself.”

Sherlock’s stomach feels very cold. “In what?”

“Sherlock...”

“Say it. In _me_. Again.”

When Mycroft speaks again, he sounds legitimately pained. “I did not want to...disturb you.”

Sherlock snorts. “Of course not. It’s very important to you, my staying appeased and out of the way, letting the big boys do your important work.”

“The last time you met, it ended--”

Sherlock laughs harshly. “Disastrously?”

“--poorly. I thought perhaps we could keep him...contained, at least for the--”

“But you can’t. You never can. Two thousand years and there’s only been one person who’s ever put him down, but you don’t want to _risk_ it. The publicity.”

Mycroft’s tones are careful. “All else aside, I hope your judgment on the issue at hand is not compromised. If Baskerville Hall--”

“You’ll get your damned Hall,” Sherlock spits. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“Be _careful,_ Sherlock.”

Sherlock ends the call and slaps his phone onto the desk. He hears the screen crack but can’t be arsed to care about it at the moment.

In the bed, John turns over, his face tight and fists clenched. Sherlock feels a little pang of regret, but it passes quickly. _Necessary_. They’re about six hours from moonrise. Sherlock knows from experience that any sleep John can catch the day leading up to a full moon is restless and riddled with nightmares. Sherlock cannot stop these, short of waking him. He often tries all the same, curls up around John and covers John’s hot body with his own cold skin. It does a little.

But today he’s got work to do, and it must be done before John wakes. He sits at the desk, takes out his phone, and taps out a text.

\---

John wakes quickly. His head’s buzzing with the kind of urgent anxiety characteristic of amphetamines, strong stimulants, and full moons. He rolls over. Sherlock is next to him, still and cold as the grave.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“Just after six. You’ve twenty-seven minutes,” says Sherlock without opening his eyes.

_“Shit.”_

John rolls out of bed and barks his shin against the bedside table with another curse. He’s already moving more quickly than usual, his movements going just this much farther. It’s disorienting in the way of teenaged growth spurts that make your limbs unexpectedly long faster than you can adapt to them.

His medications are neatly lined up on the sink. Tomorrow, when he’s come down, he should thank Sherlock.

By the time he’s finished swallowing the handful of pills, Sherlock’s up, dressed, and pulling on his shoes. “Adler’s moved the time up. Seven o’clock.”

“Fuck.” John sits down on the edge of the bed and rests his chin in his hands. His feet still can’t stop moving, drumming a pattern on the floor.

Sherlock’s watching him very closely. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m about to break all the bones in my fucking body,” he snaps. “How the hell do you think I’m feeling?”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “Lie down. I’ll be just a minute.”

The muscles down John’s neck and back and legs are unnaturally tight already. He’s got about ten minutes before the painkillers and muscle relaxants kick in full-force, maybe five before he starts feeling the effects of the lunazepam. Either way, everything had better be online in twenty.

John lies back and briefly considers trying to still his twitching limbs, but he’s too far gone to care. He’s already hearing better, smelling more, seeing into the dark corners of the room that his vision shouldn’t be able to penetrate.

He counts backwards from 100 and starts over every time he loses count. He gives it up as a bad job when he’s having to begin again before he gets to the seventies.

_What the hell is wrong with me? It’s never been this bad before..._

“I’ve often wondered,” Sherlock says from the bathroom, half to himself, “if a lycanthrope’s proximity to others or to danger affects the severity of a transformation.”

John grinds his teeth and flexes his fingers. The tension is _excruciating_. What’s the use of popping that many pills if they’re not going to do enough?

“Under normal circumstances, this would be an excellent situation in which to test that hypothesis,” says Sherlock, emerging from the bathroom. He’s not looking directly at John at first. When he does, his brow is tight, his lips tense at the corners--

John’s brain is not running on full capacity. It takes him a moment to realize--

“You didn’t,” he says, sitting up slowly.

“I had to,” Sherlock says. “I’ll explain later, but--I had to.”

John throws his body towards the bathroom, but he’s not so strong Sherlock can’t catch him and pin him back down to the bed.

“Only the lunazepam; I didn’t touch the others,” he says. “Calm down, _I’m_ here, you won’t hurt anybody you wouldn’t otherwise, I’ve got you--”

John snarls and thrashes from side to side, trying to break Sherlock’s grip.

“I’m sorry, John, I’m _sorry--”_

He doesn’t stop struggling, even as bones and tendons start to shift and snap under his changing skin.

In a moment, he’ll be _strong_.

\---

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock is still saying, over and over, as John twists and transforms.

A pair of canine jaws snap at his face.

“It’s only for a little while,” he promises, and lets John go.

John leaps down off the bed and paces around to the other side. He fixes on Sherlock and growls, baring sharp teeth more than capable of breaking off an arm. Sherlock goes entirely still.

Then there’s the sound of a man’s voice outside, calling out to someone, and John whips round. Before Sherlock has time to react, John’s jumped straight through the window and onto the grounds.

Sherlock counts to thirty, then follows.

The Baskerville security team is already giving chase. “It’s John!” Sherlock shouts, sprinting after them and feigning panic. “Someone switched his medications! Don’t hurt him! Please, don’t hurt him!”

There’s a Baskerville guard peeling off from the others, grabbing hold of him and pulling him back. “Please, Mr Holmes, you’ve got to let us--”

Sherlock plays the frantic lover beautifully, seizing the guard by the shoulders and looking wild. “Don’t hurt him! Look, I’m his guardian, I can help--”

“We’ve got this well in hand, sir, if you’ll just--”

Just then, there’s a howl, long, high, and close. Maybe one or two of the guards realizes, but they keep on John, who’s snapping at their ankles. He catches one, clamps his jaws down, and rips off the man’s foot in one swift movement. The vampire drops to the ground, screaming with rage and pain.

Then there comes another howl, and another. Sherlock’s guard goes wide-eyed and shouts for his superior.

“Sir! Do you have--”

He never finishes the sentence.

Sherlock does not often take full advantage of his strength. It’s more fun pacing himself a bit, moderating his blows. Tonight, he does not.

He seizes the guard by the throat with both hands and tosses him into the wall as if he were throwing a discus. He breaks on impact, bits of him crushing and bursting where they shouldn’t. The back of his head is staved in, a ruin of red and grey and white, and the bones of his spine being misshapen and hunched, but he gets himself up as Sherlock bares his teeth in a silent growl and digs one foot into the ground behind him in preparation. Before either of them can move, there’s a blur of brown fur slamming into the vampire and knocking him back to the ground. He screams once, briefly, before John clamps down harder on his throat. The first hard bite tears open his throat. The second rips out the rest of meat, the muscle and dead veins and tissue. Two hard chomps do for the spinal column. The vampire twitches at the crunch, and then he’s still.

John throws his head back and howls.

There’s an answering howl. Many, too many for Sherlock to separate the voices and count. _Fifty at the least. More than anticipated. That could be--problematic--_

He smells smoke perhaps half a second before the wall explodes.

A chunk of cement is blasted straight into his chest. It knocks him backwards twenty feet or more and into the ground. From the feel of it, it’s broken several bones, possibly crushed a considerable portion of his ribcage. He grits his teeth and pushes, trying to free himself. He gives it up when the pain blazing in his ruined chest becomes too much and twists his head around to assess the situation.

Baskerville’s security team is a mess. They were caught nearly unarmed, having relied too much on the mines that never came online and the high-voltage wall that’s been powered down and punched full of holes every thirty meters. Irene’s hounds are pouring through the rubble, leaping at throats, throwing sanguinarian guards to the ground and severing their spinal columns with short crunches of bone like chewing peanuts.

He’s nearly freed himself when he hears the harsh, panicked whining and barking of a wolf in pain. _His_ wolf.

His determination colors sharp with urgency, and he shoves up at the cement block _hard,_ trying to get just an inch of clearance between his body and the stone--

“Well, now, Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

Irene Adler cocks her head.

The sounds John is making are _desperate_.

_“Release me,”_ he snarls.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she says. “Laura Stapleton and I thank you for your assistance in getting her the necessary information.” She sighs and smiles down at him as if her were a precocious schoolboy. She’s got a stake in one hand, and is flipping it into the air and catching it expertly. It’s not a quiet threat. “Clever distraction. Were you planning on letting your werewolf friend savage me and my people before or after we took the Hall? After, I expect. Let us do the dirty work. But that doesn’t appear to be going quite as planned.” She squints at the house. “And there we are. Laura’s signal. That’ll be the end of Miss Caroline.” She smiles and heaves a small sigh of relief. “Baskerville Hall is ours.”

_“Let me--”_

Irene tuts. “Now, now, Mr Holmes,” she says. “Your John will be fine, I expect.” She lifts one foot and places it over his throat, stepping down just enough to render speaking impossible. Just then, John gives a very long, high whine that peters out into nothing.

_NO--_

“What was your plan? Let John run wild, strong as twenty of my wolves, and you two would let us take the Hall and then take us? No...not all of us; only me, I expect.” She laughs. “That is sweet.” She steps off his throat.

Sherlock’s eyes are blazing. “I know who you are,” he spits, “and I know who you work for.”

Her eyes widen momentarily. “That’s neither--”

“He’ll never let you leave,” he says. “I know. I _know_.”

For a moment, she considers.

Then the ice rushes back in. “I know what I’m doing. Do you?”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, without hesitation. “Stopping you. Stopping _him.”_

She shakes her head. “Brave. But fruitless. The Hall is ours. We outnumber you by too much, and your one and only ally is...incapacitated.”

Sherlock is shaking. She’s right.

“But let no one say that I am ungenerous,” she says.

She braces a foot against the block of cement pinning Sherlock to the ground and shoves once, hard. She’s much older and much stronger than he, and has a better angle. It falls off his chest and to the side, narrowly missing his arm. He gasps as his ribcage fills out again, bones popping back into place and healing.

“Take John, and leave,” she says, “and you’re free. You’ve been a great help to us; we’ve no quarrel with you.” She gestures towards the ruined wall. “Go.”

She offers a hand. His first instinct is to pull away, but he grasps it instead and allows her to help him to his feet.

“I don’t expect a thank you,” she says, leans in close, and whispers in his ear. “Good night, Mr Sherlock Holmes.”

She drops her stake into his coat pocket and disappears.

Sherlock cannot run fast enough. The smell of lupine blood is everywhere, but he could pinpoint John’s anywhere. He’s directly in front of where the first explosion happened, his right rear leg under a pile of rubble. He’s terrifyingly still, but still breathing, and that’s a small relief.

It’s not hard digging him out. He yelps when Sherlock lifts him. Regrettable, but unavoidable. The sound he makes when Sherlock stabs the needle into the side of his neck is more threatening, but short, and he goes limp.

Sherlock wraps his arm tightly around his wolf and _runs_.


	6. The Mistakes that I Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No. I'm out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Theme: Zero Sum by Nine Inch Nails_

Darkness.

The sound of wind in leaves, feet crunching through underbrush at an impossible speed, the smell of earth, mold, damp, and overlaid: blood.

The wolf’s leg throbs dully. He whines and thrashes halfheartedly. His body won’t move the way he wants it to. Still, he has to get down from the creature that’s got ahold of him, down and away, into the forest and to safety--

The creature is making sounds, and the wolf’s limbs are stilling. He growls and snaps with the last of his energy, before everything is black again, and the darkness and pain swallows him.

\---

They arrive at Baker Street an hour before dawn. Sherlock lays John out on their bed. The sedative should keep him out until he transforms. The shift will purge it from his system and set his leg right again, which is good.

Sherlock’s not sure how things will go after that. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

He shucks off his clothes and, after a brief once-over, chucks them straight into the bin. He’d shed his shoes some fifty miles ago after the soles wore out completely. The coat had been commissioned as a makeshift cover for John to keep the tree branches from smacking him, at least, and should be set to rights after a good cleaning. Sherlock’s owed a favor.

Sherlock showers cold when he showers alone. His body temperature is much lower, so he’s comfortable in cooler water, and this way he doesn’t waste the hot water before John can shower.

_He’s only personally experienced one uncontrolled transition: his first, in the hospital a month after the bite and the bullet. Before that, there was Harry, before he sent her to a home and left for the Army._

_She never killed anyone, at least. But she hurt a fair few. Possibly infected some--no, definitely at least one. That was the catalyst._

_You have lost him._

Sherlock slams his fist into the wall. Several tiles crack.

He refocuses, lathers up his hands with shampoo and scrubs them through his hair. It’s caked with dirt and blood, and working it out is almost enough of a chore to sufficiently occupy his attentions.

Almost.

_John is good, honest, straightforward, and therefore John expects these qualities in others. In the past several days, you have lied, concealed vital information and assisted people who are truly terrible by any measurement._

Irene Adler’s stake sits on top of his bookcase.

_He. Will. Leave._

The thought is so strong and so terrible that Sherlock shakes from just the contemplation of it.

_He cannot leave. I’ll kill him first._

_You won’t._

_I’ll stop him. Lock him up._

_You won’t._

_I’ll go into the sun then._

Sherlock turns the water up. The sudden heat is a satisfying shock to his nerves.

_I’ll go onto the roof just before sunrise and take off all my clothes. I’m not young; it will take a long time. But I’m very patient._

_How will it feel? How much will it hurt? I’ve been in the sun before, and it hurt, but not unbearably so. I’ve never stayed exposed long enough. How long will I stay conscious? Will I be alert and awake until the very instant I dissolve into ash? I think I would like to, to know what it’s like._

Sherlock shakes his head. He feels slightly sick.

_Bigger concerns at present. Must contact network. He’ll be on the move._

\---

John wakes up halfway through the transition just in time to roll halfway off the bed and retch. It’s a moment before he remembers why he’s so wretchedly ill, and why his leg feels like it was hit by a lorry.

He can’t recall much. There’s running, and the taste of blood on his tongue, and the terrible sound his leg made, and Sherlock apologizing over and over.

_Too fucking bad._

When John’s body is entirely his own again, he rolls off the bed, braces a hand against the wall, and stands slowly. His leg twinges a bit, but it’s no worse than it’s ever been since he got shot. He can hear the shower running. Some mornings he’d get in and join him, but not today. He’s not willing to wait though, so he digs out a pair of boxers, pulls them up, and heads into the kitchen to do a bit of a wash-up in the sink.

_I should be storming into the bathroom and punching his stupid face in. I should be furious._

Instead, he’s numb. It doesn’t feel real, despite the dried blood he’s washing off his face and hands and the ache in his leg.

John’s a doctor. He’s had in dozens of women and girls (and a few men and boys) with bruises and bites in suspicious places swearing up and down it was just the one time, they didn’t mean to, they’re sorry, it’ll never happen again.

_What’s the phrase? “I never thought it could happen to me.”_

John laughs, harder and harder. He has to brace his hands against the sink to keep himself from falling over, he’s laughing so hard. It’s not until he wipes his face against his shirtsleeve that he realizes he’s not laughing anymore.

The shower’s stopped. John can’t remember how long it’s been off. He splashes more water onto his face and takes a deep breath.

“No.”

He doesn’t turn around. He can’t.

“I’m out,” he says. “That was _lightyears_ past a bit not good, Sherlock. If you think you can treat me like that, I’m out.”

He squeezes his eyes shut.

When he turns around, Sherlock is not there.

\---

Everything in Sherlock’s head is moving too quickly, and it _hurts_. Everything _hurts_.

_He has to know I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I really won’t. I didn’t know what it would do, what it would be like. I don’t want to see him that way ever again._

Sherlock turns off the shower and reaches for the towel.

_He won’t forgive you._

_He has to._

John’s not on the bed when he comes out, but just before Sherlock panics he hears the sink shutting off. _Washing up in the kitchen._ Sherlock can’t be bothered to put on anything more complicated than his pyjama pants, T-shirt and dressing-gown, which are in a pile on top of his dresser.

There’s a puddle of sick next to the bed. Sherlock feels a pang of guilt. _The sedative._ He picks up his towel from the bathroom floor and pats it down over the vomit. Tidying up. John will appreciate that.

Sherlock shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, straightens, and heads down the hall to the kitchen.

“John,” he says. “I--”

He stops.

The kitchen is empty.

John is gone.

The trembling in Sherlock’s limbs intensifies. Shaking, he stumbles backwards into the wall and slides to the floor.

_You’ve lost him._

He’s got to--do something, he’s not sure what, but _something--_ call--John--but his ears are ringing too loudly to think and his phone’s in the pocket of his coat all the way by the door--

He smacks the back of his skull into the wall once, hard. It cracks the plaster, but better than that, the adrenaline clears his head. His ears are still ringing, but he can pull himself to his feet, stumble to his coat and get his mobile out of the pocket. He’s picked it up before he realizes there was an incoming call.

Sherlock stares at it for half a second. _Number Blocked._

His eyes gradually widen in horror as his mind settles enough for the fog to clear, the facts to connect--

He raises the phone to his ear. A muscle in his jaw twitches as he clenches and unclenches his teeth.

_“Jim.”_


End file.
